


yes your wings are beautiful. yes they shimmer. god.

by thecarlysutra



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Post-Civil War (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 10:59:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6903109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecarlysutra/pseuds/thecarlysutra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>your machinery is too much for me</i>
</p>
<p>Post-<i>Civil War</i>.  Proof that Tony Stark has a heart.  Title and summary from a softer world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	yes your wings are beautiful. yes they shimmer. god.

  
It’s possible, he thinks, there’s not a switch for this. Maybe he has broken something that can never be unbroken.

Tony had the shrapnel of his heart gilded and set with diamonds and wound into the silver chain of a necklace for Pepper. _My heart is just my heart now,_ he’d thought. He could be Iron Man without being Mr. Roboto.

He could be Iron Man, and just be a man, too. 

He had forgotten the sensors he had implanted under his skin. Maybe he can never be just human. It was easier, maybe, to be something mechanical; a machine can be programmed. It can be fixed. If something breaks, you can pull it apart, hold the working parts in your hands, and fit them back into place.

Tony watches Rhodey fall from the sky, and he feels his heart pierced again, wounds as deep and painful as the twisted pieces of bomb shrapnel that started this journey.

He started this journey.

Later, Tony thinks about gravity. The force of gravity can be measured as F = mg, where m is the mass of the body falling. Tony knows the mass of the War Machine suit to the ounce. He knows that gravity is a constant. He knows that there was nothing he could have done to reach Rhodey any sooner than he had.

He knows it is his fault, anyway.

After that Christmas when the Mark 42 proved not to be the worst idea ever, Tony implanted a whole brand new set of sensors—shiny, perfect, hand crafted by Tony specifically for Rhodey’s War Machine (so much better than Iron Patriot)—beneath Rhodey’s skin. They had gotten a little drunk, Rhodey stripped down and Tony’s hands on the familiar planes of his body. Tony watched the needle sink beneath Rhodey’s skin, his hand wrapped around Rhodey’s wrist, Rhodey laughing into the mouth of his beer.

They met freshmen year at MIT. Rhodey was 18; Tony, 16. Some great hand of fate, or maybe a dorm supervisor with a good sense of humor, had placed them together. At first, Rhodey was supremely annoyed with his new roommate. Tony played hard rock at three in the morning, and used the entire room—closets and bathrooms included—as a canvas for his schematics and formulas. Tony used Rhodey’s electric razor to build a rocket; he pulled Rhodey out of the library the night before a midterm to launch the rocket in the middle of the quad.

Rhodey brought his face down from the rocket twisting up to the heavens—a successful launch, of course—to look at Tony, his face so open and hopeful and vulnerable that Rhodey couldn’t understand how he’d never seen it before. 

Rhodey put his arm around Tony’s shoulder, then, and he had never let go.

Post-surgery, when Rhodey first hears his prognosis from the surgeon, Tony is holding his hand. Rhodey cannot speak; Tony makes some bravado bullshit comment, but his hand tightens around Rhodey’s. 

Rhodey understands how Tony feels, because Tony is his own biggest punching bag. And because he spent three months combing the desert tirelessly, looking for any sign of Tony’s existence in the impassable Afghan hills. 

“Next time, you ride with me.” 

Rhodey knows, though, that Tony’s building the prosthesis for him to help him through physical therapy is not a sign of guilt. It is a sign of love. Tony builds things. And if he loves you—because, despite his bluster and cheap tricks, Tony has an enormous capacity for love; he may not love often, but he loves deep—Tony will build things for you, because that’s what Tony does best. And Tony wants to give his best for you.

Tony shows Rhodey how to get into the prosthesis. He shows him how the sensors Tony implanted beneath his skin will lock the metal of the false legs to his own muscles, stimulating blood flow to the tissue, fighting atrophy. They’re made of some sort of alloy Tony has been working on, and they are incredibly light. 

Still, Rhodey needs Tony’s help to stand. 

Tony takes Rhodey’s weight. He pulls him to his feet, and the two of them walk, side-by-side.  



End file.
